The Life and Ministry of Jerry McAuley

Early Years

Born in Ireland in 1839, Jerry McAuley never knew his father. Since his mother was unable or unwilling to care for him, he went to live with his grandmother at an early age. One of his earliest recollections was of his grandmother on her knees praying the rosary. He would throw things at her, and she would get up and curse at him.

Growing up with no supervision, he roamed around stealing and causing trouble wherever he went. At 13, Jerry was packed up and sent off to New York to live with his sister and brother-in-law. This arrangement didn’t last very long; he soon moved out and lived with a family on Water Street in the slums of Lower East Side New York. Thievery was his main “occupation”; he stole to buy clothes and drink.

During the next five to six years, Jerry became one of the most hated
ruffians in the neighborhood. Later he said of himself, “Stealing came
natural and easy. A bigger nuisance and loafer never stepped above
ground.”

His lifestyle resulted in many stays in the
local jailhouse. Sometimes he was held only a few days and at other
times he was imprisoned up to six months.

By his late
teens, Jerry could strike fear into the heart of anyone he fixed his
gaze upon. He was such a nuisance that even the rum sellers wanted to
get rid of him. Looking at him, one would have had to wonder if he
wasn’t born to be bad. He had a retreating forehead and small, deep-set
eyes with a wide mouth and heavy, projecting nose. He was strong, with a
tall, well-built frame, long arms and large hands.

Prison Experience

At age 19, Jerry was falsely accused of highway robbery, convicted on
trumped-up charges, and sent to Sing Sing prison for 15 years. It was
January 1857.

At the end of the 30-mile train ride
from New York City to Sing Sing, Jerry read the sign over the prison’s
entrance: “The way of the transgressor is hard.” He knew this proverb
well and had heard it many times.

In his book
Transformed, Jerry
wrote, “All thieves and wicked people know it well, and they know, too,
that it is out of the Bible. It is a well-worn proverb in all the haunts
of vice and one confirmed by daily experience. And how strange it is
knowing so well that the way is hard, the transgressor will still go on
it.”

During this train ride was the first time in his
life he had felt sorrow to the degree that he was willing to do
something he had never done before: Obey rules. Jerry concluded that the
only way he could get someone to listen to his story of innocence and
help him was to follow the prison rules. Even though he knew he had done
enough wrong in the past to deserve his sentence, he did not want to
accept his loss of freedom without trying to do something about it. Born
out of hopelessness and indignation, this feeling was nevertheless the
first step to his later conversion.

Designed at the
end of the 18th century, Sing Sing was a dark and damp maximum-security
prison where talking was not permitted and torture was rampant. The
coffin-like cells were 3 feet by 3 inches wide, 6 feet by 7 inches high,
and 7 feet deep. There were no windows in the cells and merely a bucket
for plumbing. The odor was so rank it was hard to breath at times and
the mice, cockroaches, lice, fleas, and bedbugs were
everywhere.

Jerry, assigned to hard labor in the
carpet weaving shop, was a model prisoner for the first two years. He
learned to read and write and he was allowed to use the library, which
contained some religious material. But he opted to read cheap novels
that were illegally sneaked into the prison. Eventually, like most
prisoners of that era, his health began to fail. His restlessness and
sullenness led to punishment, which worsened his health and made him
even more bitter and hard-hearted.

Set Free

After five years in prison, Jerry experienced the first of three
significant events that would lead to a real life change. At a Sunday
chapel service, he heard Orville Gardner testify of his Christian
conversion. Jerry was moved to tears by this testimony. He knew Orville
was sincere because he had been his associate in many corrupt
deeds.

The powerful testimony started Jerry’s search
through the Bible for answers. Night after night he read, which led to a
burning desire to experience the same change he had seen in Orville’s
life. Some still small voice within him said, “Pray.” He didn’t know how
to pray. The inner voice again said, “Don’t you remember the prayer of
the publican, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner?’” The struggle went on
and on.

“It was as if God were fighting the devil
for me,” Jerry later recalled. “To every thought that came up there came
a verse of Scripture.”

For three or four weeks, the
mental struggle continued. Numerous times, he would get on his knees,
but just as quickly jump up, unable to pray. One day a female missionary
came to the prison and talked and prayed with him. When he saw and
heard her literally crying out to the Lord in prayer, it moved him
beyond words and intensified his struggle. That night, he resolved to
stay on his knees until he found forgiveness.

“All
at once it seemed as if something supernatural was in my room,” he wrote
in Transformed. “I
was afraid to open my eyes. I was in an agony and the tears rolled off
my face in great drops. How I longed for Gods mercy! Just then, in the
very height of my distress, it seemed as if a hand was laid upon my head
and these words came to me: ‘My son, thy sins which are many are
forgiven.’ I do not know if I heard a voice, yet the words were
distinctly spoken in my soul. I jumped from my knees. I paced up and
down my cell. A heavenly light seemed to fill it. A softness and a
perfume like the fragrance of flowers. I did not know if I was living or
not. I clapped my hands and shouted, ‘Praise God! Praise
God!’”

Even though there were to be many more years
of drinking, fighting, and crime, Jerry always pointed to that night as
his conversion to Christ.

On March 8, 1864, Jerry was
pardoned and set free. The 26-year-old set out to associate with
Christians, but their “wavering, unstable, half-and-half faith staggered
me.” The lessons he learned during this time later helped shape his
style of operating the first rescue mission in North
America.

A Life Reclaimed

Near the end of the 1860s, a sort of revival, known as the John Allen
Excitement, broke out in the Water Street district of New York. Henry
Little befriended Jerry and was instrumental in getting Jerry and his
girlfriend, Maria, to a Bible study and prayer meeting at the home of
Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Smith.

During the prayer time,
Mrs. Smith fervently interceded on Jerry’s behalf, crying out loudly and
weeping great tears. When Jerry saw how much the woman loved his soul,
it broke the hardness of his heart that had crept back in over years of
willful sin. He began to weep, and, with the urging of the other
Christians, he cried out, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” He repeated
this over and over adding, “in Jesus’ name” until he felt a calm joy
and cleansing.

Franklin Smith described this
life-changing event many years later: “There was a shock which came into
the room, something similar to a flash of lightning, which everyone
present saw and felt. Jerry fell down on his side prone on the floor
with tears streaming from his eyes. ‘Oh Jesus, you did come back, you
did come back,’ he cried, ‘Bless your name.’” Henry and the Smiths
became frightened; they jumped from their knees and ran
outside.

A Rescue Mission Vision

Soon after this second life-changing event, God sent a very important
person into Jerry’s life. Frederick Hatch was a self-made man whose
shrewd business sense and tendency to be in the right place at the right
time had lead him to great wealth. His Park Avenue Victorian home was
the epitome of respectability.

Hatch became Jerry’s
confidant, and, with unconditional acceptance, encouraged Jerry through
some rough times in the next couple of years. From 1870 to 1872, Jerry
worked at many jobs and lost most because of his bold testimony about
Jesus as God prepared him for his future
ministry.

About the same time, Maria began living her
life for the Lord. After living in New Jersey and New England, early in
1872 she returned to New York where she and Jerry were
married.

That same year, Jerry began to consider how
he might serve God. One day while singing and praising God while working
in a basement as a porter, Jerry had a vision of what he felt God
wanted him to do: Jerry washed and cleaned people on the outside as they
came into his house, and the Lord cleansed them from the inside. The
tender moment of being in the presence of the Lord brought streams of
tears as Jerry vowed to go and serve if the Lord opened the
way.

This third significant life event led Jerry to
raise money for a mission. With the help of Fredrick Hatch, in October
1872 he took possession of 316 Water Street. He used the money he had
raised to repair the building and then opened Helping Hand for Men.

A Lasting Legacy

For the next 12 years, Jerry was instrumental in countless thousands’
conversions to Christ. The tender love and acceptance he showed to the
down-and-out won over many souls. Hundreds of missions have launched and
millions of lives have been transformed as a direct and indirect result
of Jerry’s ministry.

On a September afternoon in
1884, Jerry went to be with his Lord. His death was the result of
tuberculosis he had contracted while in Sing Sing’s deplorable
conditions. It seemed that all of New York came to his open-casket
funeral to see this unique man who had the vision to open the first
rescue mission for the people of the slums.

The
rescue missions that are now in almost every major city of the United
States and in many foreign cities are a testament to how God rescued
Jerry from darkness and set him free to help rescue thousands
more.